


Burglar

by Ridel



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Bilba gonna slap a dwarf, Burglar means something completely different to dragons, Dragon!Bilbo, Female!Bilbo, Mostly the Wizard, Skin Changer!Bilbo, and a wizard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-21
Updated: 2014-11-21
Packaged: 2018-02-26 11:12:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2649947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridel/pseuds/Ridel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only one thing was going to help them catch Smaug off guard. A Burglar. And Gandalf thinks he knows where to find one... </p><p>-</p><p>Dragon!Bilba AU, in which Burglar means something... Not so nice among dragons.<br/>Mortification and bewilderment for everyone!</p><p>[A plot bunny which unfortunately never took off.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burglar

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse for this. So I won't offer one. :I

The sun was just an hour raised over the Shire, the dew lifted and the air warming nicely. The blue sky invited the peaceful inhabitants to throw open their windows, to work, play, or simply sit outside and forget their troubles. Sadly, real trouble seldom waits for a rainy day.

Bilba Baggins extracted the tip of her pipe from between her lips and exhaled a long stream of smoke.  
She made a very pretty sight, sitting in her well tended garden, her golden curls catching the morning sun and revealing the hidden copper within. She was properly plump, and had a face which seemed younger than her official 49 years. It would have been a perfect scene, were her round youthful face not overcast with tension. One of the problems which caused the downward lilt of her lips and the crease between her brows was, as it is with some women at her time of life, age. 

Her fiftieth Hobbit birthday was slowly but unstoppably charging her way, and while it was a very respectable age, it couldn’t help but set her mind to worrying about the future, and her continued place among the peaceful shirelings.  
Perhaps it was vanity, or a genuine lack of skill, but either way Bilba had never gotten the hang of old. Her attempts to add years to her face always seemed to come out strange and crooked after a point. She could bluff her way to sixty five, maybe seventy, but after that people began to pick up on the fact that there was something beyond graceful aging happening to Bilba Baggins. She’d have another twenty years, no more. 

She’d enjoyed being a Hobbit. It was, in her opinion, a very endearing shape, and she was very fond of the odd little people. But truth be told, with her dear friends and guardians Bungo and Belledonna laid to rest, she was starting to feel vulnerable, as absurd as that may seem. 

With closed eyes, she leaned her head against the wall at her back and sighed, another long stream of smoke escaping her lips and nostrils, though this time she’d not thought to lift the pipe to her mouth first.  
It was a small shock when, without the aid of a shifting breeze, her very own grey breath came back to tap her in the face.  
She blinked and waved it away, coughing more from surprise than a need to clear her lungs, for there, standing at her gate was a tall man in tatty grey robes, looking very much the same as he had when she’d first met him some forty years ago.  
Bilba’s mouth hung open uselessly for a moment or two, before she managed to gather enough mental steam to stutter out a stunned “... Good morning.” 

The man appraised her from the gate, apparently measuring her words and finding them unsatisfactory.  
“What do you mean?” he asked, leaning on his staff. "Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"

She gave him a half lidded, incredulous smile despite herself.  
“I suppose I mean all of them at once.” she stood, straightening her petticoat and approaching the gate. “Now, considering the old Took past ten years ago and my own Birthday isn't for another two months, I gather you’re not here to set off your famous whizz boppers?”

The old man chuckled, his face losing much of the mysterious gravitas it had carried moments before. “More fool me for thinking you might have forgotten.” 

Bilba leaned her palms on top of her small fence, hoisting herself up just enough to allow her feet to swing an inch or so above the soft turf. She was after all speaking with one of the only beings she actually knew who was older than her. Having to play the adult for as long as she had, she sometimes forgot that she was actually quite young for her kind. Perhaps it was Belladonna’s stories, or the few encounters she herself had had with the Wizard, or the simple fact that he knew her secret and still treated her kindly, but for whatever reason she tended to feel more herself around the old man than anyone else.  
“A young girl is hardly likely to forget fireworks like those. Or that a certain wizard promised to set a few off on one of her own future birthdays.” There was teasing in her tone, though honestly she did half hope there would be fireworks in her near future. She had a great love for beautiful things, no matter how fleeting they be. 

The Wizards face reluctantly regained some of its seriousness.  
“Indeed you’re right Bilba Baggins, I’ve not come to you on party business. I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure...”

The words hung in the air exactly the way Bilba didn’t. Her large feet thumped into the ground as she let herself drop from the gate, her face suddenly wary.  
After a moment she ventured to ask, “Would this be the sort of adventure you’d have been happy to take any Hobbit on, or just me?” There was a subtle edge to her voice. 

Gandalf looked mildly offended. “I do, in fact, believe that Hobbits have much to offer, and as you know have taken your own mother on more than a few adventures in her time.” He sniffed.

“But?” Bilba prompted, her guard now visibly up. 

“Well,” Gandalf conceded, “let us just say I believe you are uniquely qualified for this particular quest.” 

“That’s what I thought.” Bilba muttered. She pushed herself back from the gate and shook her head. “I’m sorry Gandalf, but the qualifications you are referring to are not for hire. you’ll have to find someone else. Good morning.” With an abruptness that would have earned her a thick ear from Bungo, she turned on her considerable heel and marched back up to her cheery green door. 

The Wizard huffed. “What a great many things you use Good Morning for. Now you mean you wish to be rid of me!”  
Bilba wrenched the door open and strode back into her home without looking back. 

“No adventures Gandalf! Not of that sort.” still, a twinge of guilt for her brusque behavior made her pause and add, “However, since it looks like you’ve had a long journey, you’re welcome to have supper and stay the night here before you go off to find my replacement.” She curtseyed awkwardly and added another good morning, not caring what he’d make of that one, then closed the door. 

She wandered to her kitchen to work on an early second breakfast, wondering what had just happened in her front yard.  
The scratching at her door went completely unnoticed.


End file.
